Nothing - NOTHING - has happened lately to even remotely tickle my fancy, and nothing is nothing you'd like to hear about. So with a sad and sorry heart, I beg your forgiveness for the dullness of late causing no updates to appear. Right then - waa waa waa - now that's out of the way it's time to tell you about another penis-related adventure of mine, this time with Mike. What kind of adventure (Charlie) do you think it was? With the keywords 'Mike' and 'penis-related' you may think you already know the answer. However, if I told you we broke into the Devils Hill Penis Tower, would you be correct? Thought not...

Teufelsberg was a place used during the Cold War for spying. The facility sat atop a man-made hill, which is the highest point in Berlin. Don't be impressed, it's not that big. After the war it was to be made into a resort but was abandoned during the renovations. So we have a spying complex on a hill overlooking Berlin - that just calls to be broken into and explored! Apart form the motion sickness-inducing underground, the ride there was nice with some light snowing. We passed the Olympic stadium on the way while some kind of sporty thing was happening (all the police there for the soccer hooligans), then rode up the teeny-tiny hill to the abandoned buildings. It would have been so much more cool if Mike and I were the only ones doing it, but nooo - every man and his grandmother's bloody dog were using the exact same way through the three-layered barbed wire fence as us. There we were, scopeing out the place and waiting while some people on a bush walk went by (we pretended to be having lunch there to look less sus') when another three randoms came up and just jumped right through. Aww... Now it's no fun. My sails? No wind at all, all gone, taken. We went in after them anyway, not that it was exciting anymore - sob.

Once inside there we lost sight of them immediately; it's kinda big you see, the complex, not the hill. Strolling about the perimeter felt a little exposed so we found a way in and started exploring. It was pitch bloody black - you couldn't see anything anywhere! It was fortunate I had my bike light to use as a torch, as there were bloody great holes everywhere. Dark, long and spooky halls; rooms with old, rusty and broken machinery; collapsed elevator shafts lit by piercing rays of sunlight coming through holes in the roof from four floors above - all of these things tickled my fancy in a very exciting kinda way. There were whole floors of pitch-black empty rooms, with fluorescent light recesses hanging from the celling frames by their wires, and floor panels removed in places. We braved a few of the floors like that, to emerge on an emergency exit landing rather high up and rather unsure how safe it was. We went back down and into the next part of the complex, which could have been a lobby, an information desk or a spy hideout (much more exciting). Broken stuff, scattered rubbish, rooms with bars, and a lot of graffiti - repeat.

Copy paste the last few lines several times - ... - and now we're at the Penis Tower! Does anyone dare not argue the point it's phallic symbolism? How else would one stand proud and erect to the DDR (communist East Berlin) but with a giant spying tower shaped like a wang? Mike took a million photos of the damn thing, but can you blame him? Come on! It's a giant penis! Hehe, penis...

Harriet will be pissy with me that I got to go there and she didn't; the first few floors had some amazing graffiti! [Donald] [Design] [Devil] [Despair] [G'Rraffe] [Lol Cat] [Enlightenment] [Squirrel by popular vote] The sunshine we were enjoying between buildings was not making up for the penetrating (hi Trie!) cold wind that blew across every floor unhindered by walls. Yeah - P.S. - no walls on any of the floors, totally safe mum. Let's not mention the snow had become hard in the wind, so all the floors were iced - this just keeps getting better! I was very happy to arrive on top of the main building, which looked familiar (thanks Google Earth!). Mike pondered over the door to nowhere for a while, while I played about under the lower dome (the right testicle) giggling at the echoing. This was what you'd imagine the whole world looking like after some kind of nuclear war; I loved it, but it was cold. The stairs wound up about the elevator shaft (hehe, shaft) to many floors with canvas walls that made eerie noises in the wind like thunder. Finally, the head of the tower (hehe, head) was an enormous hollow space that produced the most amazing reverberations I've ever heard. When I spoke it was so odd I had to stop mid-sentence; you could literally hear your own breathing in there.

This was all very amazing, yes, but we were getting kinda' cold. Best to leave while it's still fun and we have not been fined for trespassing, or become frozen to the floor. The last odd thing we saw there was a half-started building foundation that had become a duck pond. Interesting... Guess that was where they had abandoned the refurbishment.

The next day Mike and I adventured by foot all over Berlin. We visited the Ample Man shop - that's traffic light man rather than adequate man shop, but the second meaning seems more apt for Mike. Nothing especially interesting happened. I was glad to guide Mike about long enough to make us both want to go home again. I actually forgot to mention our adventures two days before this, but all we did was the norm - see bits of the wall, visit museum with emo rock, visit shopping centres with odd insides, see funny signs near the Dom(e), eat kebabs with knoblau, and steal Meike's parent's beamer. Funny, that Mike was more interested in Hello Kitty stickers and Wunderbar's than a giant chocolate Riechstag. We did try to visit the Reichstag but the lines over a long weekend can go to hell. Instead, we went to Wedding, some 'straight' graffiti (Mike called it), Gemeins@m (?), and an odd underwear ad. The last thing we did was walk along part of the wall [Aliens] [Penguins] [Kermit] [Underpants]. Fun times with Mike and Meike. Next plan is the abandoned hospital south of Potsdam, and also to check out Einstein's old place on the way. Mike - you better start cycling more to prepare yourself for the ride!

And yes, it's also true that we visited Meike's grandmother a while ago; but the heading Visited Grandmother in Oldenburg just doesn't have any umpf to it. We dug up a patch of her garden for planting vegetables; all day working and such a small area completed felt so lame. Meike held up well, even with her semi-broken ankle.

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